For the young fathers rocking their infants to sleep amid the glow of the television, for the hard-core hockey fans who find joy in a four-playoff-game night, for those of us in Columbus who are wondering whether anyone will take a run at Jeff Carter — not to hurt him, mind you, but just, you know, out of curiosity — for all of us, John Forslund has turned into a late-night pal. He is the Wolfman Jack of the NBC Sports Network.

Forslund is one of NBC’s play-by-play announcers during the NHL playoffs. He was dispatched to southern California on April 29, and he is still there. His is an interesting perch. After an entire (half) season of calling Eastern Conference games as the voice of the Carolina Hurricanes, he is getting an in-your-face view of the West.

“There is a level of playoff hockey being played in the West that is different from the East,” Forslund said. “I’ve been saying that for years, but this year it is more pronounced. That first-round series, St. Louis against LA — it started as soon as the puck dropped. Seeing it live is something else — but it comes across on TV, too, and if you can see it on TV you know it’s unbelievable.”

Forslund has done four Ducks-Red Wings games, two Sharks-Canucks games, three Blues-Kings games and five Sharks-Kings games — 14 in 20 days, live and in color. He has seen the West at its best.

“It’s ferocious hockey,” Forslund said. “There is more structure, more balance and there is depth throughout the lineups. The West has morphed into a bigger, stronger and, at many times, faster conference. These teams have all evolved as they’ve tried to keep up with one another.”

If you have been parked on your sofa the past three weeks, perhaps you have wondered: What would the St. Louis Blues — who were eliminated by the defending champion Kings in the first round — do to any of the teams in the East? The word carnage springs to mind.

“If you look at the overall play, the speed and style of the Western Conference — it’s different,” said Ed Olczyk, Chicago Blackhawks analyst and lead analyst for NBC Sports. “Is it better? I don’t know. But I think it’s deeper.

“In the East, the Penguins and Islanders would compare well to the way they play in the West. In the East, they play more defense to neutral zone to offensive zone. And in the West it’s more defensive zone right to offensive zone, in a lot of situations. In the playoffs you see the difference.”

The West has won 10 of the past 16 Stanley Cups. Will the trophy stay in California or return to Chicago or Detroit? Not necessarily.

The Boston Bruins won the Cup in 2011, and they are capable. The Penguins won it in 2009, and they are capable. It is conceivable the Penguins will gain in consistency, get Marc-Andre Fleury back between the pipes (they won’t win it all with Tomas Vokoun in goal) and get humming in the conference finals, as they did four years ago.

“An Eastern Conference team will need superior goaltending, the ‘unfamiliar factor’ and it will have to be clicking at the right time to beat a team from the West,” Forslund said.

It is also possible that whoever makes it out of the West will be too beat up to win the final round. We shall see.

In the interim, those of us in the Eastern time zone who are using Forslund and his analysts (Daryl Reaugh in the first round, Joe Micheletti in the second) as our overnight lights cannot help but mark the hours. The games that start at 7 and 7:30 p.m. feel like preliminaries for the real action, which starts at 8, 9 or 10 p.m. — or when Forslund looses his first “ohhhh, my.”

It bodes well for the Blue Jackets as they prepare to realign next season. They have finally grasped a game few in the East seem to comprehend.

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